AMD Discloses More Details About Sony PS4 System-on-Chip

Advanced Micro Devices on Thursday revealed additional details about the system-on-chip that powers Sony Corp.’s PlayStation 4 video game console. According to AMD, the accelerated processing unit inside the PS4 is the company’s first design win with semi-custom APU for high-volume applications with multi-year lifespan.

“At the most basic level, an APU is a single chip that combines general-purpose x86 central processing unit (CPU) cores with a graphics processing unit (GPU) and a variety of system elements, including memory controllers, specialized video decoders, display outputs, etc. Our semi-custom solutions take the same treasure trove of graphics; compute and multi-media IP found in our APUs, and customize them for customers who have a very specific high-volume product that could benefit from AMD’s leading-edge technologies,” explained John Taylor, vice president of global communications and industry marketing at AMD.

In the case of the PS4, AMD leveraged the building blocks of its 2013 product roadmap – the same technologies one will find in the latest AMD APUs powering PCs, ultrathin notebooks and tablets – to create a solution that incorporates our upcoming, low-power AMD “Jaguar” CPU cores with next-generation AMD Radeon graphics. This APU architecture enables game developers to easily harness the power of parallel processing.

“This is going to be a very exciting year for gamers, especially for those with AMD hardware in their PCs and consoles, as we have even more game-changing (pun intended) announcements still to come,” added Mr. Taylor.

The PS4 will come with 8GB of unified GDDR5 memory sub-system (with 176GB/s bandwidth) for both CPU and GPU as well as large-capacity hard disk drive. Sony PS4 will be equipped with Blu-ray disc drive capable of reading BDs at 6x and DVDs at 8x speeds, USB 3.0 connectivity in addition to a proprietary aux port, Gigabit Ethernet port, 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.1 EDR wireless technology as well as HDMI, optical and analog outputs. The new system will also utilize new DualShock 4 game controller with integrated touchpad as well as better motion sensing thanks to new PS4 Eye tracking cameras. Sony PlayStation 4 will be available this holiday season.